Related

VANCOUVER -- When Vancouver's Matt Buie arrived home from a Mexican vacation with his family to find he had incurred $22,000 in data roaming charges, he also soon discovered his cell-phone horror story is only one of many being told by Canadians across the country.

Buie's story - in which his 11-year-old son unknowingly ran up the charges watching YouTube videos - is echoed in a report released today by Vancouver's OpenMedia.ca, which documents consumer complaints of bad service, restrictive contracts, high prices and unexpected bill shocks.

"Canada's cellphone market is dysfunctional and in desperate need of an overhaul. Government policy has allowed three incumbent service providers - Bell, Telus, and Rogers - to control almost 94 per cent of the cellphone market," the report says.

" ... As a result of this lack of choice, Canadians experience excessively high telecom costs, restrictive contracts, and disrespectful customer service, particularly as compared to users in other countries."

OpenMedia.ca, which ran an online and social media campaign starting last October to collect Canadians' "cellphone horror stories," said it received more than 2,500 responses.

"They were all complaints," OpenMedia.ca spokeswoman Lindsey Pinto said. "They were telling us their cell-phone horror stories. It was mostly Bell and Rogers."

"I'm happy to be the Ralph Nader of roaming charges," said Buie. "My understanding is that 90 per cent of Canadians want a $50 to $200 roaming cap."

Rogers, Canada's largest wireless carrier with 9.4 million wireless customers, accounted for 38 per cent of the OpenMedia.ca report's complaints, with subsidiaries Fido and Chatr accounting for 9 per cent and 0.1 per cent respectively.

Bell, which has close to 7.5 million wireless customers, was second at 26 per cent of the complaints, according to Pinto, with Virgin and Solo - both Bell services - accounting for five per cent. Telus, which has 7.7 million wireless customers, accounted for 17 per cent of the complaints, with its subsidiary Koodo Mobile at 1.5 per cent.

"Canadians seem to be very upset about how they are being treated overall," said Pinto. "Service made up the vast majority of the complaints."

More than 60 per cent of the people who shared their cellphone horror stories complained about service; transparency was an issue identified by close to 47 per cent and 36 per cent had issues with contracts. Many of the complaints cited more than one factor, including being locked into contracts and high roaming charges.

The report calls for more choice in the cellphone marketplace, fair contracts, better service and transparency.

"One respondent reported that when he called his service provider to find out why his bills were suddenly so much higher, 'They told me that my three year plan had expired, and they reverted me to the highest possible charge they had. There was no attempt to inform me that the original contract had expired and that my rates were about to change,'" the report said.

Pinto said OpenMedia.ca simply asked people for their experiences, without limitations. One person's complaint was 14 pages long, while another referred to a 2002 experience with Telus.

"For the most part, I got the impression they were recent experiences, although I don't have the data one way or the other," she said.

Telus spokesman Shawn Hall said his company has made a number of changes in recent years to answer consumers' concerns, including a shift to what it calls "clear and simple" pricing plans, allowing customers to unlock phones for a $35 fee after three months, data roaming plans and alerts, and a $200 cap on roaming, which lets customers know they have reached that cap and prevents further data roaming charges unless the customer sends a text message approving it.

For Buie, a $200 cap would have prevented his 11-year-old son from using 758 megabytes of data at $30 per megabyte over three days during the family's Mexico vacation.

"If that had been in effect, my son would have been shut down and I - as the guy who pays the phone bill- would have been forced to reply back, saying 'Yes, I approve that,'" he said.

Rogers spokeswoman Jennifer Kett said Buie didn't actually receive a bill for $22,000 but had his service halted when his account had incurred that much in data roaming fees.

"Fido immediately offered to reduce Mr. Buie's bill to $2,200 (the cost of what his bill would have been with a data roaming package). His bill was then reduced again to $500. Upon further consideration we have now agreed to lower Mr. Buie's bill to $200 for the roaming charges incurred in Mexico," Kett said in an email.

Kett said her company offers roaming packages that significantly reduce the cost of using voice, text and data services while customers are out of the country.

"Customers who buy a package are sent text message alerts when they reach 50 per cent, 80 per cent and 100 per cent of data usage. In order to ensure customers never spend more than they expect, their usage will be suspended once their MBs are fully used," she wrote in the email response.

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.

Video

Today's News

Best of Postmedia

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Ignore the diversions in the United States: athletes kneeling or standing during the national anthem; Republicans flailing and failing again on health care; a kick-boxing creationist possibly becoming senator from Alabama. Calamity looms elsewhere. We are hurtling toward war with North Korea. It may be as early as next month. […]

It wasn’t in the middle of a farmer’s muddy field or deep in the boreal forest where the Canadian oilsands truly struck pay dirt. It was inside Fort McMurray’s recreation centre. More than 1,400 oilpatch workers, corporate executives, provincial leaders and the country’s prime minister assembled 21 years ago in northern Alberta to grasp a […]

Google’s powerful search engine is defeating some court-ordered publication bans in Canada and undermining efforts to protect young offenders and victims. Computer experts believe it’s an unintended, “mind-boggling” consequence of Google search algorithms. In six high-profile cases documented by the Citizen, searching the name of a young offender or victim online pointed to media coverage […]

Almost Done!

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.